


If Only Nightmares can be Whispered Away

by caramel_ICE_cream (cheriemelody)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Ruri and Yuto are discussed, can be read as shipping if you want, i don't think it's too violent, nightmares from ptsd, something inappropriate is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-17 02:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11842284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheriemelody/pseuds/caramel_ICE_cream
Summary: Shun doesn't know how to feel when he can't tell whether Ruri and Yuto are alive or dead. Honestly, he believes that they are stuck in a fate worse than death. Even when he's told that they might be able to become their own persons again, this only makes him worry more about the risks. As a result, his nightmares get even worse.At least he has someone to talk to.





	If Only Nightmares can be Whispered Away

_ He wakes up to Ruri’s voice. She’s telling him that he’s going to be late if he doesn’t get his ass out of bed soon. He yells at her to not swear and starts getting ready for school. She calls him a hypocrite. _

_ While eating lunch, he hears Yuto complaining about the test they just took. He smiles when he sees Yuto angrily stuffing his lunch into his mouth. He grins even wider when Yuto talks about his plan to hang out with Ruri later today. Because that was all it was: a “hangout.” He laughs when Yuto blushes.  _

_ Now he’s dueling Kaito, and the children in the park are cheering both of them on. Somewhere else, Ruri and Yuto are on their date (they refuse to officially call it a date) like the stupid lovebirds they are.  _

_ As usual, he loses. That doesn’t change how content he is when the children are gathering around them, admiring both of them with eyes open wide with amazement.  _

_ The ground suddenly shakes, and there is an explosion. He can only stare in shock when the children around him are turned into cards.  _

He and Yuto are fighting in hell. He is about to be hit and can’t move away in time, but Yuto takes the hit for him. Yuto falls to the ground, and blood is pooling on the ground around his body. He holds Yuto’s body in his arms and realizes that Yuto is dead. 

_ I’llneverforgiveyouI’llneverforgiveyouI’llneverforgiveyouI’llneverforgive- _

“ACADEMIA!” With a shriek, his falcon bursts into flames and soars across the enemy lines, setting them on fire, making them scream with agonizing pain. They brought down hell itself, so he’ll create his own hell out of their dying souls.

Even among all this noise, however, he hears a familiar scream. His sister is being taken away!

“RURI!!!”

He tries to follow her, but the remainder of the enemy blocks his path. He curses and orders his falcon to obliterate them. When they are destroyed, he continues to follow her. And then comes face to face with the Professor.

“Let her go!” he demands.

The Professor only stares coldly back at him. “No,” he replies, “she is needed as a sacrifice for the utopia I plan to create.”

He sees Ruri in pain. “That’s bullshit! Give her back!” he roars. 

Ruri is placed on an altar, and he can’t move. Ruri is screaming as she is being held down and is about to have her throat slit with a knife. Why can’t he move?! It’s too late. Ruri is choking on her own blood, and before she even dies, the flames consume her.

* * *

Shun woke up screaming. He looked around him in panic. Where’s Ruri? Where’s Yuto? Where was he? This is his. Room? He was just… dreaming?

_ That was just a dream. That was just a dream. _

After realizing that, he took a few moments to calm himself down. Only to realize that tears were dripping down his face and onto his bedsheets.  _ What a horrible nightmare. It was even worse than usual.  _

His nightmares constantly woke him up, but it was rare for them to affect him this much. Did he scream while he was having this nightmare? Probably. His neighbors probably hated him. He groaned. He needed to drink some water first. He seemed to have sweat a lot. He shakily went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. 

Drinking the water helped to clear his mind. However, while the nightmare itself didn’t affect him as much, the reality of his situation came back to him.  _ Ruri… Yuto… _ Shun always missed them ever since he had lost them, but that feeling of loss and longing never felt more tangible than it did now, even when compared to when he had pushed the other Lancers away from him and refused to interact with them. At least back then, he had the determination and will to save his sister. But now, all he could do was wait.

He wearily went back to his room and collapsed onto his bed. Shun checked the time. 3 AM.  _ Great, a solid 3 hours of sleep. _ He wasn’t even sure if he could go back to sleep soon, no matter how tired he was now. He doubted it. 

Sighing in defeat, he went to his computer to browse through the internet. The light from the screen would decrease his already low chances of sleeping later that night, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Despite having an account, he almost never looked at social media, but it wasn’t like he had the mental energy to read a book instead. So social media it was.

People posted really stupid stuff on social media. At least it was amusing, which was most likely the point anyways. Sawatari won a duel against a random person today and bragged about it. Sora posted a picture of a pretty cake he had for dessert. The design on it was actually very well done. Out of curiosity, Shun looked at Sora’s page to see that, yes, most of the pictures he took and posted were pretty desserts. Moving on. Pictures of flowers. Taken by. 

This was a mistake. 

He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Why did she have to look so much like Ruri? Why did Ruri have to be. . .?

His vision blurred. He wanted to laugh at himself. He felt even more pathetic than he usually did. When he had to look for Ruri, he had never cried, but he was crying more than enough these days. Perhaps all of the tears he should have shed back then were being compensated now. 

He used his sleeves to wipe away his tears. When he looked at the screen again, there was a new post. 

_ What idiot is awake at this hour? _

It was a text post that said, “Guess who’s awake at this ungodly hour? AGAIN. *crying blob emoji* *crying blob emoji* *crying blob emoji*”

_ Oh, it’s Dennis. _

Soon after, another text post was added, which said, “So does anyone ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) want ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) to keep ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) me ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) company ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) for tonight ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)?” 

_ Is it an offer to sneak into his room and murder him for all of the fucking emojis he’s spamming? _

Seriously, though, was he that sleep deprived to the point of posting like this?

_ “ _ PS: Yes,” it continued, “this is directed towards the one who’s awake at this horrible hour as well. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.”

That honestly took him by surprise. Then he noticed that people could tell from the screen whether someone was online or not. 

Shun picked up his duel disk. It wasn’t like he was going to fall back asleep anyways. As he waited for the call to be picked up, he hoped that he didn’t misunderstand the messages.

“Hi, Kurosaki!”

Yup. Looks like he didn’t misunderstand. The only thing he didn’t understand was why Dennis seemed so energetic this late in the night. “Yeah, it’s me.” 

“You alright?” Dennis seemed concerned.

“What?” Shun didn’t expect him to be worried from the way he said a few words.

“Honestly, I can tell from your voice that you were crying.”

That makes sense. He cried a lot tonight. He didn’t expect Dennis to be any less observant.

“I had a nightmare.” Shun cringed at his own sentence. It sounded like something a little kid would say.

“It must have been terrible.” If anything, Dennis sounded more concerned.

“It was,” Shun admitted. “One of the worst I’ve had so far.”

There were plenty of nightmares regarding Academia’s invasion and the dimensional war. There were even more nightmares that included losing Ruri or Yuto. However, this one was particularly vivid, and he felt more helpless in that nightmare compared to the other ones.

Dennis hummed lowly in thought. “Hmm, are you more anxious than usual? Was it something to do with Reiji saying that he’s getting closer in finding out a way for them to get separated?”

Shun answered quietly, “Anxious, huh? You’re probably right. They really need to get this over with as fast as possible. When are they actually going to fucking separate?”

“I don’t have any fucking idea.”

“So far, you’re not really comforting me.”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying,” Dennis deadpanned. 

Shun closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. If he were in a slightly better mood, he might have chuckled. “Well, try harder.”

“Well, I’m  _ sorry _ , but I’m not a fucking therapist,” he replied dryly. 

Unfortunately, they both knew that Shun couldn’t talk to one. An entire metropolis had been stuck in a warzone for a year, and there simply weren’t enough psychological therapists to go around. Sure, even though Akaba Reiji had offered him one, Shun couldn’t accept it and said that that therapist should focus on other victims, preferably children. 

Then again, while having a therapist would have improved his overall mental health, he only wanted to talk to Dennis now. 

“Didn’t you say that you would believe for her sake?”

Shun opened his eyes. “Right.” Ruri was even more worried about the future attempt to separate than he was, which only made Shun feel worse. There were different ways the separation could go wrong. It was possible that they would never separate. It was possible that when they separated, they would be reborn as infants. It was possible that they could  _ die _ . Therefore, for both Ruri and Yuto, Shun vowed to believe that everything will be alright. Especially when Ruri herself couldn’t believe in that. 

“So focus on that! Try to believe, for Ruri and Yuto at least, that it’ll be fine.”

Shun sighed again. It was too easy to forget about that sometimes. “Thanks for the reminder. I needed that.”

“No problem. That’s the least I could do for you.”

_ The least you could do for me? _ “Wait, I want to make this clear:”

Dennis remained silent on the other side, waiting.

“I don’t want you to feel indebted to me because of what you’ve done in the past. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t care about that anymore, but I don’t want you to help me out of guilt.” 

“. . .”

Shun waited for a response, but none came yet. “Dennis?”

“Yes, just let me think for a little longer.”

Shun wasn’t sure why he didn’t want Dennis helping him out of guilt. Pride? All he knew was that it would leave a bad taste in his mouth.

“Kurosaki.” Shun listened attentively.

“I admit, part of the reason why I want to help you is my guilt. I don’t know if that will ever fully go away. But do you remember when I first arrived in Heartland after the battle against Zarc?”

“Yes.” Of course Shun remembered. “Even now, it still scares me.”

“Wait, what part scares you?” Dennis sounded surprised.

“Did you ever even glance at yourself in the mirror at that time?”

“Yeah. What about it?” He sounded confused now.

Shun was starting to feel exasperated. “During the war, I saw plenty of Heartland citizens who were practically the walking dead, so believe me when I say that you looked dead.”

All Dennis did was whistle in response. Shun couldn’t believe it. “That’s definitely how I felt but I didn’t realize that it was that obvious.”

_ Why is he pretending to take it so lightly now? _ He remembered when Dennis had first arrived in Heartland after the end of the battle against Zarc. Worried beyond belief about not knowing where Ruri and Yuto were, upon seeing him at first sight, all Shun had wanted to do was to beat that bastard to death. He had grabbed him by his collar and had risen his fist up to punch him. Then he had realized that Dennis was not responding at all. Confused, he had looked into his face. And hadn’t found a single expression. Shun had dropped him out of surprise, and Dennis had lifelessly collapsed. Dennis had only seemed confused as to why he hadn’t been hit.

Even now, Shun slightly worried that Dennis never completely recovered from that state. “You didn’t notice how you scared everyone?”

Instead of answering the question, Dennis asked, “So that was why?”

“Why what?”

“Why you helped me that time. Instead of heading to the fusion dimension right away to look for Ruri.”

“Yes. That was one of the reasons why I stayed in Heartland at that time.”

“. . .”

Shun waited for him to respond. Part of Shun wondered why he was so frank, but he decided that it was probably due to staying awake so late in the night.

“Anyways,” Dennis finally said, “that’s the main reason why I feel indebted to you. You were there for me (even though that wasn’t your biggest concern), so I want to be there for you, now that you’re this anxious.”

“All right. Thank you.”

After a while, Dennis said, “I’ve always wondered something, but you don’t have to answer it.”

“Go ahead.”

There was a pause, and then he asked, “Why aren’t you living at the Hiiragi household even though Hiiragi-san offered?”

Shun sighed deeply. “I honestly wouldn’t mind so much if Ruri wanted me there, but she told me that she didn’t.”

“Wait, she told you that?”

“I was confused at first, too. But I soon realized that I didn’t know what she was going through. It’s one thing if Ruri could switch with places with Yuzu once in awhile, but she can’t. What’s it like seeing your brother every day and only being able to talk to him through someone else?”

Since Shun had no reason to live in the Pendulum Dimension, he had decided to stay in Heartland.

“That, that’s. . .”

A long silence sat between them. Eventually, Dennis broke it with, “I don’t feel like you’re going to sleep anytime soon.”

“Yeah, I’m not sleepy now. But I’m very tired. But what about you? Why are you awake now?”

Shun imagined him shrugging as he replied, “I’m used to it. I don’t really need much sleep these days anyways.”

That was concerning. “That doesn’t sound good. If it keeps up, you should check it out.”

“Alright, alright,” Dennis dismissed it. 

“Are you eating right?”

“I think so.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Okay,  _ mom _ , I’m eating fine. I just don’t want to sleep when I’m going to have nightmares and wake up from them anyways.”

_ You have nightmares, too? I should have expected that, but still. _

“If anything, you should feel more tired.”

“Should we talk about something else? Something less serious? I’m glad to listen if you want to talk about something else, but us talking about one heavy topic after another wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

_ Fine, I’ll ignore this for now. _

“Hmm. I don’t feel like talking much now, but talk to me about something. What about your students? Did anything interesting happen?”

He heard chuckling from the other end. “I think I told you about Hitomu before.”

“Oh, I remember. What did he do now?”

“Well, today, someone offered to give pieces of chalk, so I was like, hey, it would be fun to see what my students draw. Plus, it might be used to see what they should focus their entertainment on. We were allowed to draw on the plaza, since it would be replaced soon, and it’s not like chalk permanently marks concrete.”

“I can see where this is going.”

“So Hitomu got it into his head to draw some dicks.”

Shun almost choked. “Wait, how old is he?!”

“Nine.”

“That’s  _ way  _ too young!”

“I know, right?”

“How does he even know about stuff like that?”

“I don’t know. Anyways,” Dennis continued on, “it caught me by surprise, which is stupid because I should have expected something like this from him. Trust me, I was trying my best not to laugh. I scolded him and told him to never do that again and then gave him a 30 minute timeout.”

“Wow, you handled it well.”

“What do you take me for?!” he acted insulted. “If anything, I treated it like he hurt my cat!”

After imagining the scenario and then the scene of the young boy hurting a cat that didn’t exist, Shun finally laughed. And then it turned into a laughing fit. Like his tears, it felt like all of the laughs he should have made in the past year were finally being made up for.

After he calmed down, he wondered, “Hard to believe that that troublemaker wants to entertain.”

“Yeah,” Dennis agreed, “but he’s one of the most passionate students when it comes to Entertainment Dueling. His heart is in the right place. Mostly.”

Shun teased, “Reminds me of you.”

“Yeah, right!” Dennis rejected indignantly, “Just so you know, I don’t draw dicks on the street.”

Shun laughed again. Thankfully, it didn’t evolve into another laughing fit.

Afterwards, the conversation gradually became more and more one-sided as Dennis continued to talk to Shun, who became sleepier. Eventually, Shun was too tired to even hum in response when Dennis asked him if he were awake. “I’m going to assume that you’re sleeping now,” Dennis said softly. “Are you?”

_ I am, but I’m too sleepy to answer anyways. _

“Good night.”

_ Good night. And go to sleep, you idiot.  _

After the call ended, Shun quickly fell asleep. For the rest of the night, he slept peacefully.

**Author's Note:**

> Tfw most of the fic is just a phone conversation. For the amount of time I spent on this fic, I'm not satisfied with it at all. rip
> 
> This was supposed to be part of rare pair week for prompt "sleep," but it's not shippy enough. And no, I don't count Dennis's flirting.
> 
> I think M is too high a rating, so can someone tell me if it should be T or M?


End file.
